The arts cannot survive on rich backers alone

Thursday 22 July 2010 10:51 BST

There's a new idea in Torytown: it's called Philanthro-capitalism. Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt prefers private giving to Arts Council grants, and proposes a 50 per cent cut at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

The arts cost only 0.07 per cent of total public spending — 7p in every £100. The Arts Council theatre budget for 2008 was £54 million; in return, the theatre paid back £76 million in VAT in London alone. That's a 40 per cent dividend.

Why doesn't the Chancellor want to fund that level of return? £54 million is one 30,000th of the sum used to bail out the banks.

Most of the West End's hits began in the subsidised sector. If I asked a multinational to back a new musical based on a great 19th-century socialist novel (Les Misérables), they wouldn't return my call. Likewise, trench warfare with puppet horses (War Horse) or musical drama about accountancy (Enron).

These shows were made by bold artists supported by stable public funding. What capitalist would come up with Enron?

Theatres are not wasteful places. They already use the Big Society model of volunteers, interns and low wages. There's no fat left to cut. And the idea that artists deplore private money is nonsense; we've been gratefully squeezing every last drop of money from sponsors for years.

If I could only afford a café in my theatre because someone wanted to name it after their cat, I would cut the ribbon on "Snuggles Bistro" with joy. We spend countless evenings telling sponsors how welcome their support is.

Most philanthropy is London-based. Where will organisations outside the capital, where cultural life is less "glamorous", find their rich backers? Without them, smaller organisations in the arts pyramid will starve, and eventually there will be no one at the top. Of the 187 Academy Award nominations given to Brits in the past 30 years, 145 went to people who started in the subsidised theatre. Today's fringe produces tomorrow's Oscar winners.

Private money is a welcome "and" but it mustn't become an "or". Donors don't want to fill a gap, they want to be associated with success. At the first sign of lack of "success", donors can run a mile. Philanthro-capitalism will make theatre more expensive, and more elitist; the working class has no rich mates to put money into stuff made for them. If the funding tail starts wagging the artistic dog, a privately funded theatre won't stage certain plays for fear of offending its backers. Private funding can make for soft art.

I think this has nothing to do with culture. Jeremy Hunt is a career politician in a small, stepping-stone ministry. The "Star Chamber", where each department must justify its spending to George Osborne before it can sit at the cutting table, makes ministers pluck a huge — and increasing — figure for cuts out of the air in order to impress their masters. But it's extraordinary that Beckett-loving Nick Clegg can renege on the Lib-Dems' express manifesto commitment not to reduce arts funding quite so quickly.

A civilisation is judged by its culture. Name me one Ancient Greek accountant.